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SABBATH DISCOURSE 



ox THE DEATH OF 



Hon. EUFUS CHOATE, 



TOGETHER WITH THE 



ADDRESS AT HIS FUNERAL 



BY 

NEHEMIATI ADAMS, D. D., 

PASTOR OF TOE ESSEX STREET CHURCH, BOSTON. 



> • ^ 



BOSTON: 
J. E. TILTON AND COMPANY. 

185 9. 



- ^4^ 

.C 4 A 2.1 



Entered according to Act of Congress, iu the year 1859, by 

J. E. TILTOX AXD COMPANY, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of 
Massachusetts. 



University Press, Cambridge: 
Electrotyped and Printed by "Welch, Bigelow, & Co. 



A SERMON 

PREACHED 

TO THE ESSEX STREET CONGREGATION, 

BOSTON, 

Sabbath Morning, July 17, 1859, 

WITH REFERENCE TO THE DEATH OF 

Hon. RUFUS CHOATE, 

LATE A MEMBER OF THE CONGREGATION. 
BY 

NEHEMIAH ADAMS, D. D., PASTOR. 



SERMON. 



TO HIM THAT MADE GREAT LIGHTS : FOR HIS MERCY 
ENDURETH FOREVER. — Psalm CXXXvi. 7. 



That vacant pew, covered with habili- 
ments of mourning, tells its own sad tale. 
The last time that most of us saw that de- 
parted fellow-worshipper and friend in pub- 
lic, he was on the platform in front of this 
pulpit, at the commemoration of the twenty- 
fifth anniversary of the pastor's settlement. 
The part which he took on that occasion is 
too deeply impressed on your minds to need 
anything more than this passing allusion. 



6 SABBATH SERMON. 

Before he rose to speak, we had Hstened to 
the beautiful and touching words of that 
chanted hymn, " The Anniversary of Twenty- 
five Years ago." The prominent words of 
those stanzas were, " Passing away ! Pass- 
ing away ! " The thought occurred to me 
at the time, whether he would have chosen 
that such a strain, in that minor key, should 
be the immediate prelude to his remarks. 
Alas that the words of that strain should 
first of all have been fulfilled in him ! He 
himself was " passing away," That great 
mind has fled. This week, the waning moon, 
unless the clouds conceal from her the sight, 
will look upon a vessel making toward this 
harbor freighted with a form as precious as 
any that ever passed over, or entered, the 
sepulchres of the sea. Blessed be God, that 



SABBATH SERMON. 7 

those sepulchres are not to receive him! 
He passionately loved " the literature of the 
sea " ; the Odyssey had a special charm over 
his imagination ; but we give thanks that 
we are spared the pain of associating the 
wandering graves of ocean with his burial ; 
that his sepulchre will be with us, and be- 
come one of our shrines for the pilgrimages 
of genius, and learning, and love. 

Who will undertake to analyze the char- 
acter of this great product of the Divine 
workmanship ? To analyze one of our wood- 
land scenes in autumn, with its chanoino- 
leaves, its evergreens, Ijirds, and flowers ; 
writing with musical annotations the dif- 
fering voices of the wind in the oaks and 
pines, and pointing with the finger to say, 
'' This is sublimity, and this is beauty" ; and 



8 SABBATH SERMON. 

setting tlie outgoings of the morning and 
evening there in comparison one with the 
other, — would be, in some respects, a like 
employment, and the task would be accom- 
plished with the same amount of dissatisfac- 
tion in all who have felt the power of this 
transcendent mind. Its operations were no 
more a rule for another mind, than the laws 
of nature in the Pleiades are the rule for the 
solitary star. Were this the time and place, 
therefore, and it were becoming in me to 
attempt anything like a eulogy, I should 
only pour out my soul with yours, in love 
and grief, as I do here, directing your 
thoughts, by the help of such a subject as 
he and his genius and his services afford, to 
that God who gave him, and who took him ; 
— "to Him that made great lights : for his 
mercy endureth forever." 



SABBATH SERMON. 9 

Great men are special gifts of God to a 
nation, and through it to the world. They are 
special efforts of that same Divine benevo- 
lence which gives us Apennines, and Alps, 
and Lebanons, and Himalayahs. These, the 
utilitarian and materialist will admonish us, 
are needful parts of the world's mechanism. 
None the less on that account a devout mind 
recognizes them as proofs of goodness in the 
Deity. The mechanism of human society, 
for all the practical purposes of life, might 
work well if there had been no Homer, no 
Shakespeare, no Milton ; but the wisdom 
and goodness which ordained that the eye 
and mind should not be wearied with uni- 
form dead levels, and therefore set up the 
corner-stones of the globe with a view to the 
benevolent effect upon the earth and its in- 



10 SABBATH SERMON. 

habitants of hills and momitams, are pleased 
liere and there to endow men with tran- 
scendent genius for the good of the race. 
They have an elevating effect upon mankind, 
by raising the standard of excellence ; they 
rebuke our grovelling thoughts, purify and 
ennoble our conceptions, shed a charm over 
things which otherwise would be tame and 
wearisome ; they are the wine of life ; they 
are angels on the ladder with God Almighty 
above it, filling even our dreams, as well as 
our waking hours, with assurances that there 
is somcthino; better in reserve for all who 
seek it, than they have reached. But these 
gifts of God, these men of genius, are ca- 
pable of perversion by us, like all his gifts. 
Occasional large crops may excite impatience 
and discontent in the young man, through 



SABBATH SERMON. 11 

his desire for a region where profuse yegcta- 
tioii is the general rule. Those special sea- 
sons in which God is j^leased to turn the 
attention of men in great numbers to the 
subject of religion, tempt some to neglect 
Christian effort, and to look continually after 
phenomenal events in the religious world. 
Thus the fame of genius awakens in some 
the desire to shine in the view of men, to the 
neglect of slow, patient industry, as prov- 
idential success in business tempts others 
to make adventures at the risk of their reg- 
ular calling and their integrity. But these 
abuses do not stay tlie ordinances of Heaven. 
In every department of life, God bestows 
upon some men certain things. which, how- 
ever cultivated and improved by effort, arc, 
in a special sense, native endowments ; they 



12 SABBATH SERMON. 

are born in these men, and, with their fea- 
tures and stature, are written in God's book. 
A man of genius is therefore a proper occa- 
sion of special praise to God, for his sov- 
ereign power and goodness. Men seldom 
think of this. They worship and serve the 
creature more than the Creator, who is over 
all, God blessed forever. They should rather 
feel disposed to address great men in these 
words, and for mutual admonition : " And 
what hast thou that thou didst not receive ? 
For who maketh thee to differ from another ? 
Now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou 
glory as if thou hadst not received it ? " 
Gifts of genius are as really the special gifts 
of God as the miraculous gifts which led 
the two Apostles at the Beautiful Gate of 
the Temple to say, '' Ye men of Israel, why 



SABBATH SERMON. 13 

look ye so earnestly on us, as though by our 
own power or holiness we had made this 
man to walk ? " A wonderful mind is 
merely an uncommon efflorescence in one of 
a number of plants of the same species, 
whose structure is ordained by the all-wise 
God ; and we are to receive the rare product 
like every creature of God, with thanksgiv- 
ing. It is a new illustration of that Divine 
benevolence which, even in this world of sin 
and deserved misery, strives to teach us that 
God is love. But we do not find it to be a 
common thing for those who read the great 
poets and prose writers, and look upon 
works of art, and listen to eloquence and 
music, and reverence statesmanship, and 
great military talent, and medical sagacity, 
and surgical skill, and the fruits of me- 



14 SABBATH SERMON. 

cliaiiical genius, to j^raise and bless Him wlio 
made heaven, earth, and seas, and the foun- 
tains of waters. Yet the same hearts, many 
of them, are led to think of God hj viewing 
the firmament. Now, when we see the bright 
hosts which adorn the intellectual and moral 
firmament, we should give thanks to Him 
that made great lights in the moral, as well 
as the natural world. To show his power, 
God is pleased to adorn the world of mind, 
now and then, with galaxies, clusters ; but 
we say, " The age produced them ; the times 
made them." Who made the age ? Our 
times, — are they not in His hand ? One 
great man in a century might have sufficed ; 
but lo ! that same Divine wisdom and love 
of excellence, which evervwhere else at times 
rejoice to overflow all their banks, make one 



SABBATH SERMON. 15 

land after another the object of affluent 
goodness in the Ibestowment of great men 
in companies ; so that the constellations 
themselves arc not more classified and 
marshalled than these great lights of their 
resi^ective lands and times. " that men 
would praise the Lord for his goodness, and 
for his wonderful works to the children of 
men ! " In the realms of thought, where 
God, who is a Spirit, should specially be rec- 
ognized and adored, shall we set up idols ? 
As one of the curses upon idolaters, it is 
said, " Then God gave them up to worship 
the hosts of heaven." It was a sublime and 
fascinating kind of idolatry ; in the intel- 
lectual world it has not ceased. Let men 
turn their thoughts to God as often as they 
contemplate a great mind among their fel- 



16 SABBATH SERMON. 

lows. Their worship is due to Him who 
made Arcturus, Orion, and the chambers of 
the South ; to Him who made great lights : 
for his mercy endureth forever. 

One of those great lights is now set. 
Never more shall we see his similitude in 
any other mind ; but the Divine goodness 
which gave him to us and to the nation, 
endureth forever. God has rich gifts in re- 
serve for men, which can not only equal, but 
surpass, all his creations hitherto. While 
you mourn your loss, think of Him who 
made such a mind ; be grateful to the 
Giver ; worship God. 

We have a rare and wonderful product 
of New England in this master mind. You 
would not have assigned this great man, 
with his fervid genius, a birthplace in 



SABBATH SERMON. 17 

our good old staid Massacliusetts Ipswich. 
Along the shores of the Mediterranean you 
would sooner have selected his birthplace. 
Regions impatient of rest by reason of vol- 
canic agencies, where liery streams of an 
exhaustless crater never become cold, and 
where the vine and olive, fearless by reason 
of innocence and simplicity, crowd close 
up to the deluge-marks of lava, and droj) 
their fruits on them, were more appropri- 
ately, in our thoughts, the parallels of his 
birthi^lace. Or, at least, from the regions 
of the South, in our own wonderfully di- 
versified climatology, might we rather have 
looked for his origin. But no. He is the 
son of our own New England. Yet Khode 
Island and Connecticut, with their more 
Southern aspect, cannot claim him. The 



18 SABBATH SERMON. 

Granite State must be content to yield a 
Webster. Yermont might well have nestled 
his infancy in some of her beautiful nooks 
and dens. Maine, with her incomparable 
breadth and length, and wilds, and peerless 
affluence of rivers, was not indulged with 
the honor of his nativity. How good it 
seems to us in Massachusetts, that our soil 
and climate, and our social life, produced 
him ! We will give thanks for this. " The 
lines are fallen to us in pleasant places, 
and we have a goodly heritage." The 
young men of Massachusetts may see, that 
whatever gifts the God of nature may have 
bestowed upon them can here find devel- 
opment and prosperous growth. We love 
our New England and our Massachusetts 
more than ever for the sake of this dis- 



SABBATH SERMON. 19 

tinguished man. "We mourn our loss, but 
0, give thanks unto the Lord, for he is 
good ; for his mercy endureth forever ! To 
Him that made great lights ; for his mercy 
endureth forever. 

The astronomer who sounds the depths 
of space with his telescope, is overwhelmed 
not so much by his discoveries as by the 
thought of the realms which are yet be- 
yond the reach of mortal vision. The con- 
templation of great men in this world may 
properly have the same effect on us with 
regard to intelligent spirits superior to 
man. This is God's host ! When we con- 
sider them we may well say. What is man ? 
Reason, as we possess it, which lifts us 
above the brutes, shows in a certain sense 
our inferiority to angels ; for the very ne- 



20 SABBATH SERMON. 

cessity of reasoning as we do, reveals that 
we are below those in whom processes of 
thought are electrified into lightning speed, 
or are wholly superseded by intuitions. 
Though we stand in awe before a great 
man here, we should cease to do so could 
we look upon the unfallen sons of God. 
" Strength and beauty are in his taber- 
nacle." We trace divine wisdom and skill 
by the microscope, down where mortal dis- 
cernment faints ; but there are yet worlds 
of minute things still beyond our search. 
Now, if God has employed his omnipotence 
in that direction, how must it be toward 
the opposite pole ? Will he reduce ani- 
mated life down to sponges and barnacles, 
leaving us in doubt whether they deserve 
the name of livin": thino's ? If so, where 



SABBATE SERMON. 21 

will lie stoj) wlieii lie creates intelligent 
spirits in liis own image and in liis own 
likeness ? "Is there any number of liis 
armies ? And on whom doth not his light 
arise ? " 

The great man, as we call him, dies. 
"We will suppose him to have been a god- 
less man. " His breath goeth forth ; he re- 
turneth to his earth ; in that veiy day his 
thoughts perish." He enters the world of 
spirits. He was a distinguished statesman. 
But where was he when the morning stars 
sang together, and all the sons of God 
shouted for joy ? He was a great orator. 
But the Spirit of God gave inspiration to 
the first-born spirits in heaven, whose 
words, compared with those from the most 
eloquent lips of man, are like sunbeams 



22 SABBATH SERMON. 

on a street lamp which is left burning after 
sunrise. He was a great poet ; he was a 
master of song ; '' The Creation," " The 
Messiah," are his. But there was a '' Cre- 
ation " sung when God laid the founda- 
tions of the earth. And when he bringeth 
in his first begotten into the world, was 
there not a '^ Messiah " ? for he saith, 
^' And let all the angels of God worship 
him." The music of heaven for a period 
beyond our computation, ascriptions framed 
by angelic minds, the learning, the renown, 
the beauty and majesty of those that excel 
in strength, '' the helmed cherubim and 
sworded seraphim," and, withal, the ac- 
complishments conferred by divine knowl- 
edge and moral beauty on the very hum- 
blest of the heavenly host, make the spirit 



SABBATH SERMON. 23 

of the great man from earth feel how poor 
a thing mere human greatness is, and that 
nothing is truly great in Heaven which is 
not first, last, midst, good ; that the fear 
of the Lord, that is wisdom ; that to ac- 
quire the spiritual image of the Redeemer 
on earth, is the great end for which life 
was given. To be " a great man " in this 
world is, of itself, and viewed in connection 
witli endless life, no more than to be a 
greater worm. A chameleon, or bird of 
paradise, or peacock, or a magnolia, or a 
giraffe, or a cedar in Lebanon, are the peers 
of ^' a great man " who is distinguished by 
nothing but natural endowments. " Like 
sheep, they are laid in the grave; death 
shall feed on them ; and the upright shall 
have dominion over them in the mornina; ; 



24 SABBATH SERMON. 

and their beauty shall consume in the 
grave from their dwelling." " As a dream 
when one awaketh, so, Lord, when thou 
awakest, thou shalt despise their image." 

But let the great man glory in this, saith 
God, " that he understandeth and knoweth 
me." For whatever orders of beings there 
may be in the universe, we know this, that 
our human nature is capable of being per- 
sonally associated with the Godhead. In 
the man Christ Jesus, inhabited by the Word 
who " was with God, and was God," we see 
that man's nature has capacity unsurpassed 
by that of any creature. We do well, there- 
fore, to consider what it must be for one 
whom God has endowed with pre-eminent 
mental gifts, to become an inhabitant of 
heaven. Placed upon the path of life, a 



SABBATH SERMON. 25 

career is opened before him as a subject of 
redemption, and allied by likeness of nature 
to the Lamb who is the light of heaven, 
which is never to find its goal, for it is lost 
in the infinitude of God. 

And now, while we worship here, this 
distinguished friend has entered upon his 
deathless career. 

If he complied with the Gospel of our 
Lord Jesus, he is saved ; and " there is none 
other name under heaven given among men 
whereby we must be saved." 

The last public address which he made 
was a confession of his faith. He set his 
seal to the doctrines of the cross as preached 
here. " We have attached ourselves to this 
form of faith," he said, speaking for you 
and for himself, " because we believe it to 



26 SABBATH SERMON. 

bo the old religion, the true religion." This 
comes to us now with a special practical 
interest, relating to his eternal peace. His 
last utterances to the world contain a solemn 
and affecting appeal to ministers everywhere 
to preach more about eternity. " There is 
sometimes upon their lips," he says, in the 
last paragraph but one of his address, " that 
tremendous expression, — wliatever it means 
in the original, — ' The redemption of their 
soul is precious, and it ceaseth forever.' " 
His faith in the eternity of future retribu- 
tion was inwrought among the deepest con- 
victions of his nature. Some one was speak- 
ing to him in a disparaging manner of that 
doctrine, and quoted with disapprobation 
some of the awful expressions commonly 
used in expressing the subject. Our friend 



SABBATH SERMON. 27 

replied to him, in that gentle way ■which wc 
all marked and loved in him, " But are you 
not sometimes afraid that these thin<]i;s are 
true ? I am." He was not ashamed of his 
faith. He fully maintained, on the jiublic oc- 
casion alluded to, his assurance tliat it fur- 
nished the broadest field for mental culture. 
Is not he himself a demonstration of his 
claim ? I will not speak of him with any 
sectarian feeling, as having been, from choice, 
not merely from the force of education, a 
Congregationalist. His address before the 
New England Society at New York defines 
his position on that subject. But to what an 
unfathomable depth do all such things de- 
scend compared with this : Did he accept 
pardon and salvation offered to him through 
the blood of Jesus ? If not, " the least in 



28 SABBATH SERMON. 

the kingdom of heaven is greater than he." 
If he did, what spirit from this world will, 
in tlie progress of eternity, be a brighter 
jewel in the diadem of Jesus ? 

The responsibility of preaching statedly 
in the hearing of such a man, and of stand- 
ing to him in the relation of pastor, now 
assumes an importance which you may 
well suppose is overwhelming. The man- 
ner in which he spoke to me of preaching 
to which we had listened together, showed 
me that whatever reached the heart and 
, conscience of the humblest member of 
the congregation was sure to do its work 
in his. Parting with him on board the 
steamer, he held my hand, as if loath to 
say farewell. I said, " We shall all re- 
member you " ; when he interrupted me, 



SABBATH SERMON. 29 

seeing what I was about to say, and re- 
plied, " Yes, remember me in the best 
sense." He felt the power of prayer. No 
man was ever prayed for more than he by 
members of this church. The results of 
preaching and of hearing are with him now 
beginning their ceaseless history. Much 
of my time, since I heard of his death, 
has been occupied in thinking in what way, 
and on what occasions, I might have been 
more faithful, more judicious, more in ear- 
nest with him ; you perceived by his re- 
marks here, at our late festival, that " we 
were made manifest in" his " conscience," 
but that one might say, reversing the or- 
der of an Apostle's assurance, with regard to 
his own preaching, " and we trust also" — 
"to God." No affected humility in the 



o 



SABBATH SERMON. 



2-)reaclier of the Gospel should prevent him 
from giving its full credit to the power 
which that Gospel asserts for itself to be 
a savor of life unto life to them that be- 
lieve. If saved, our friend is saved, not 
as a great man, but as a pardoned sinner, 
by the same mercy which saved the peni- 
tent thief, and Saul of Tarsus, and all 
who have washed their robes and made 
them white in the blood of the Lamb. 
If the Gospel, as preached here, has been 
the means of his salvation, you can im- 
agine what the relations will be in heaven 
between him and his pastor. " For what 
is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing ? 
Are not even ye in the presence of our 
Lord Jesus Christ at his coming? For ye 
are our glory and joy." In writing to 



SABBATH SERMON. 31 

him at Halifax, in a letter which came 
too late, I told him that one of my fond- 
est hopes with regard to heaven was that 
I might know and love him there. 

See, in the worth of his soul, which you 
can in some measure appreciate, the worth 
of your own souls. We are each immortal, 
like him ; and, in the progress of our be- 
ing, the joys and sorrows of eternity would 
be to each of us all that they can be to 
any other. Permit me, as your minister, 
to direct your thoughts to that vacant seat 
of his, and to remind you that your place 
and mine in the house of God soon will 
know us no more. Remember the testi- 
mony which he gave to the truth as it is 
in Jesus. " Therefore, my brethren, dearly 
beloved and longed for, my joy and crown. 



32 SABBATH SERMON. 

SO stand fast in the Lord, my dearly be- 
loved." You liave been happy to be asso- 
ciated with this friend and parishioner in 
the ordinances of public worship. You are 
to behold him this week as he pauses here 
for an hour on his way to the house ap- 
pointed for all the living. May all this 
have the effect to make you do with your 
might whatsoever your hand findeth to do. 
Be grateful for this friend ; profit by all 
that you have known of him ; make good 
use of the talents and opportunities allotted 
you ; live for the approbation of the God 
that made you, and the Saviour that re- 
deemed you, and for the society of just 
men made perfect. In your redeemed na- 
tures, there will be found latent powers 
and faculties which will make you cease 



SABBATH SERMON. 33 

to covet the gifts bestowed on great men 
here. ''To him that overcometh will I 
grant to sit with me in my throne, even 
as I also overcame, and am set down with 
my Father in his throne." " And I will 

GIVE HIM THE MORNING STAR." Amen. 



ADDRESS 



AT THE 



FUNERAL OF HON. RUFUS CHOATE, 



IN THE 

ESSEX STREET MEETING-HOUSE, BOSTON, 
July 23, 1859. 

BY 

NEHEmAH ADAMS, D. D., 

PASTOR OF THE ESSEX STREET CHURCH. 



FUNERAL ADDRESS, 



" The beauty of Israel is slain upon thy 
high places." And can this be he ? Is he 
dead ? " All ye that are about him bemoan 
him ; and all ye that know his name say, 
How is the strong staff broken, and the 
beautiful rod ! " Could no judge ])e found 
who, in this cause, would rule at his motion ? 
Was there no jury whom he could persuade, 
or at least divide ? Alas ! would not even 
the executioner pay him courtesy ? 

As the apple-tree among the trees of the 
wood, so was he among the sons. The 



38 FUNERAL ADDRESS. 

whirlwind passed by ; the fruit-tree, loaded 
with fragrant fruit, lies as low as the with- 
ered tree. 

In the halls of Congress he rose to speak, 
and one and another who did not care to 
listen, and were departing, caught the first 
tones of his voice, paused, turned back, and 
became enchained by his eloquence. He 
was to speak before some institute, and an 
assembly came together which was never 
surpassed, and their tribute to his power 
over them was as rich a chaplet as ever 
descended on the brows of orators. The 
merchant princes laid their questions before 
him, and his counsels gave them almost the 
assurance of a verdict. Men bound him to 
their service as soon as they anticipated 
trouble, or they bought his promise not to 



FUNERAL ADDRESS. 39 

appear against them. The profession were 
assembled, and to the stranger it was a chief 
object of interest that he was there. His 
ilkistrioiis friend and yours is dying at 
Marshfield ; many are round about him ; 
but whose is that well-proportioned form, 
in the front of the picture, with that lithe, 
graceful carriage of the body, that striking 
head, marked throughout with genius, that 
face bending toward the dying man with an 
expression in which great thoughtfulness 
and great love mingle ? And 'has all come 
to this ? Weep, cities and villages ! Weep, 
halls of learning, halls of legislation, halls 
of justice ! Weep, forum, bar, pulpit ! He 
who commanded so great reverence and 
love is dead. In that beautiful idiom of 
the tongue in which he was lord, he is 



40 FUNERAL ADDRESS. 

" no more." Now, like the common dead, 
he waits upon the Christian minister for 
the funeral service, and then " the clods of 
the valley shall be sweet unto him ; and 
every man sliall draw after him, as there 
are innumerable before him." 

Has all that rich, gathered harvest of 
learning and knowledge, all that wisdom 
and prudence in affairs, all that acquaint- 
ance with the master-spirits of his race, and 
that power to apply their beautiful creations 
and inventions, perished ? That tongue 
should never long be silent which wrought 
with such magic. That mind is just the 
representative of a world of fancy and im- 
agination which we need, to teach us how to 
invest the commonplace and literal with the 
spell of beauty and originality. How can 



FUNERAL ADDRESS. 41 

we do ^yitllout him ? No one else can satis- 
fy our want. In tlie closing words of his 
speech at a recent celebration of Webster's 
birthday, we shall often say, — as we listen 
to orators, or try, perchance, ourselves to 
be such, — "0 for one hour of" Clioate ! 
But is he " no more " ? What error does 
that pathetic phrase contain ! If he ful- 
filled the purpose for which his Creator 
made him a free agent, he is all that he 
ever was, and will be infinitely more. For 
he who looks on that coflin and continues 
to be a materialist, and says that that great 
soul perished with the body, must not 
accuse others of credulity. We decline to 
argue with him. 

How gentle he was in his intercourse 
with you. He gave you a chair as no one 



42 FUNERAL ADDRESS. 

else would do it. He persuaded you at his 
table to receive something from him, in a 
way that nothing so gross as language can 
describe. He treated every man as though 
he were a gentleman ; and he treated every 
gentleman almost as he would a lady. His 
playfulness was so wise that you would as 
much admire as smile. One word would 
often drop from him of such comprehen- 
sive, picturesque meaning and beauty, that 
the whole company would sit in smiles and 
think about it, as before a picture, till he 
skilfully turned the conversation. Then 
again, how inquiring, how docile he seemed 
as he sat and listened to you ! His intense 
desire to know everything about a subject 
led him to ask simple questions, to express 
a childlike wonder, to press you further, — 



FUNERAL ADDRESS. 43 

all which was the musing mood of his own 
mind, though it seemed like simplicity. I 
have seen him as earnest in having one tell 
him how the tenor, alto, and soprano stood, 
relatively, on the score, and why, as though 
it were a point in jurisprudence. He made 
you feel that you were teaching him ; and 
you forgot for the moment how much wiser 
your information made him than it had 
ever made you. 

It will not be deemed unsuitable if his 
pastor should, " now and here," as he 
himself would say, open to you a slight 
view of him as a parishioner. The inter- 
vals were not long between some expres- 
sion or token of his remembrance, — all 
the more grateful as they were oftentimes 
delicate and simple ; though now and then 



4:4: FUNERAL ADDRESS. 

tlie valuable contribution to the pastor's 
library of the work in sixteen volumes, or 
in six, or in four, or two, reflected as much 
honor upon the giver, who showed his own 
power to appreciate and select such books, 
as it made the receiver feel the obligation 
to raise his own standard of acquirements, 
it was the man himself appearing before 
you in his tokens of remembrance which 
gave them their principal value. If he is 
at Washington, he must needs tell a min- 
ister at home, in his letter, how " the Sab- 
bath bells do not a little aggravate home- 
sickness." See, once for all, in a note 
accompanying a royal octavo edition of 
Wordsworth, the man, original and pecu- 
liar in his kindness to a pastor as he was 
in all other qualities ; — for there is little 



FUNERAL ADDRESS. 45 

risk ill supposing that very few men ever 
wrote just such a letter as the following 
under the same circumstances : — 

'' My dear Sir, — Having had a child 
born within a few days, I have thought I 
could do no honester thing than to send 
my minister a volume of poetry, — a votive 
volume, as Wordsworth might say. I shall 
be sorry if you happen to own the edition. 
I am most truly, 

Your friend and servant, 

R. Choate." 

October 2, 18—. 

Had he been an angel, could any Chris- 
tian i^astor ever have feared for his own 
sake to preach before him, knowing that 
such a heart was in his bosom ? No, the 
only pain was in tlie intenseness of the 



46 FUNERAL ADDRESS. 

desire to say or do any thing wliicli might 
he to the spiritual benefit of such a man. 

I have kneeled with him in prayer when 
a great sorrow was upon his heart. I have 
stood with him as he leaned against the 
door and wept. Yes, I have seen him 
weep. And when he wept, you will believe 
that it was to me, and would be to any 
man, " a great mourning ; as the mourning 
of Hadadrimmon." 

A very short time before he was to de- 
liver his address before the New England 
Society of New York, I asked him if he 
had yet written it. " Not the seven-thou- 
sandth part of a word," was his idiomatic 
answer. " But," said he, " I believe that 
I shall appropriate a speech made at Park 
Street Church the other evening." It 



FUNERAL ADDRESS. 47 

was a charge at tlie ordination of a young 
friend from Geneva, who was to labor as 
an evangelist in Canada. Coming as the 
candidate did from Geneva, it was natural 
for any one who addressed him to speak 
of the Puritans in their connection with 
Geneva. The few, unambitious words on 
that topic, on that occasion, reported in a 
newspaper, were an accidental spark which 
entered the furnace-chamber of his great 
mind, and kindled it for a performance 
which will not soon be forgotten. It was 
like him thus to recognize one who had 
done him a service even unintentionally; 
nor did he fear the imputation of pla- 
giarism ; for his taking of another man's 
thoughts was as when the sun plagiarizes 
the waters, and turns them into showers, 



48 FUNERAL ADDRESS. 

and rainbows, and gorgeous sunsets, and 
harvest, and grass upon the mountains and 
herbs for the service of man. 

His love of nature had a most interesting 
property, Avhich, theoretically, one might be 
tempted, without knowing the man, to say 
was not agreeable to the highest reach of 
sentiment. He loved Nature chiefly in her 
utility. He was, in his own sphere, creator, 
and he loved things not only for themselves, 
but as creating. The ocean must have 
its ships and commerce to please him ; it 
must report to him how it fills harbors and 
estuaries, that he may love it supremely. 
Nothing was more poetical to him than that 
which he so often speaks of in his addresses, 
— '' the hum of labor." A mechanic Avas 
with him Homeric. The ringing of an 



FUNERAL ADDRESS. 49 

anvil, the whirring of a planing-machine, 
the factory bells, and wheels, and looms, 
were all of them to his mind impersona- 
tions of beauty. He would, perhaps, be 
more imaginative over a great wheat-field, 
than in the solemn woods, so far was his 
mind from anything dreamy, or from being 
sentimental for its own sake. Yet when he 
was a boy, and drove his father's cow, and 
cut his switch, as no boy in that capacity 
must fail to do who would drive well, he 
has said that more than once, when he had 
thrown away his switch, he has returned 
to find it, and has carried it back and 
thrown it under the tree from which he 
took it, for, he said, " Perhaps there is, 
after all, some yearning of nature between 
them still." He had not walked far one 

4 



50 FUNERAL ADDRESS. 

morning, a few years ago, he said, and lie 
gave as a reason, that his attention was 
taken by a company of those large, creep- 
ing things which lie on their backs in the 
paths as soon as the light strikes them. 
" But of what use was it for you to help 
them over with your cane, knowing that 
they would become supine again ? " "I 
gave them a fair start in life," he said, 
" and my responsibility was at an end." 
He has probably helped to place more peo- 
ple on their feet than otherwise ; and no 
one has enjoyed it more than he. 

Let us unite and do him honor, in view 
of his decision of character in connection 
with political affairs. I am not to intrude 
them here, nor is it important for my pur- 
pose to say, or to know, of what school or 



FUNERAL ADDRESS. ol 

party he was at any time a member ; for 
had it been science, or religion, or business, 
in which he had shown the decision of 
whicli I speak, it would have served my 
purpose as well. 

If there ever was a party or class of men 
who had reason to be proud of their po- 
sition and relationship to each other, it was 
those old, conservative, very respectable 
Federalists, many of whom bore so close a 
resemblance to the old school of English 
gentlemen. With such men the idea and 
the name of Democrat were exactly opposite 
to all their instincts and associations of 
ideas. Nowhere was this more true than 
of the Federalists of Essex County in this 
State, where Mr. Choate had his birth, and 
where he entered into professional life. Re- 



52 FUNERAL ADDRESS. 

membering that these deep-seated associa- 
tions of ideas have been, till quite recently, 
transmitted from Federalists to old Whigs, 
it has seemed to me that in Mr. Choate's 
alliance, through the force of conviction, 
with the party with which he has of late 
sympathized, we have an illustration of de- 
cision of character for which all men, irre- 
spective of their creeds, must do him honor. 
He had no political interest of his own to 
promote by it ; he was conscious of seeming 
to forsake, not only his old associates, but 
some of his long-cherished associations of 
ideas, which, in a man of his mental struc- 
ture, did greater violence to his feelings 
than anything else. 

You will perceive that my remarks have 
no reference to the correctness or incorrect- 



FUNERAL ADDRESS. 53 

iiess of liis 2)olitical ojDinions, at one time or 
another; but meeting around liim, as you 
do to-day, with your party banners trailed, 
and with reversed arms, you will all confess 
that in such a chano-e as he made in his 
political relationships, and for the way in 
which he sustained himself in it, he is wor- 
thy of honor and love, for manliness of char- 
acter, for moral courage, for noble daring, 
for self-reliance, and for his power to give 
a reason of the hope that was in him. 

He was no changeling in anything. He 
carried heavy anchorage. Wherever he 
dropped it, there he rode, tides, winds, 
tempests, notwithstanding, and, more than 
a,ll, with gallant barks around him more 
prudently retiring from the roadsteads till 
the weather should be fair. 



54 FUNERAL ADDRESS. 

He was not insensible to animadversions 
upon liim. He loved tlie good opinion of 
liis fellow-men, because lie loved them, and 
he was very sorry wlien those whom he 
wished to respect blamed him. 

A minister, who took a deep interest 
in political affairs, once said severe and 
sharp things about him. His friends were 
moved with resentment; but Mr. Choate 
said, with evident grief, and like a child, 
" I am disposed to write him a letter, and 
tell him that he is mistaken." Few things 
in him have ever touched me more than 
this incident, in view of all the circum- 
stances of the case. 

It may seem remarkable to some, that a 
man of his nervous temperament, and sub- 
ject to such great and frequent demands 



FUNERAL ADDRESS. 55 



upon it, should not liavo fallen into the 
liabitual use of some powerful narcotic. 
Had he done so, it would have plainly 
manifested itself in one so constantly be- 
fore the public as he. Exaltation of spirits 
by a powerful narcotic is inevitably followed 
Ijy a corresponding depression, unfitting its 
miserable subject for continuous mental 
labor. But we all know how consecutive 
he was in Ins mental efforts. When he 
had performed one great service, he was 
ready for another of a different but equally 
laborious kind, or for his daily work. 

Some have been interested to inquire 
whether he had the artificial aid here re- 
ferred to, in his mental efforts. The hiohh- 
respected physician who has been his med- 
ical attendant for twenty years places this. 



* . > 

• , • 



56 FUNERAL ADDRESS. 

l)y his denial of it, beyond a question. He 
would have known it if it were so. On the 
contrary, ho says that he could ordinarily 
put him to sleep with a Dover's powder. 
Once, at home, using laudanum in a tooth, 
it produced a sickness which showed that 
his system was a stranger to such a nar- 
cotic* 

He made the impression upon those who 

* Since this Address was delivered, a gentleman of the 
highest respectability has called upon me to say, that, to 
his personal knowledge, a friend, a few years since, told 
Mr. Choate of a prevailing belief that he used opium, and 
that Mr. Choate replied, in the most emphatic manner, " T 
do not hiow the taste of opium J^ The perfect confutation of this 
charge, which even charitable men feared might have con- 
firmation in the corrugated, worn look occasioned by intense 
efforts, should be an admonition to us ; while, no doubt, it 
will awaken, in many, that stronger love which comes to 
a generous mind with the regret at having entertained an 
injurious suspicion. 



FUNERAL ADDRESS. 57 

witnessed his daily life, that he was as pure 
and upright in his private history, as he was 
honorable and noble in his intercourse with 
men. He therefore needs no vindication 
here, nor elsewhere ; and in this respect he 
is fortunate above many w^ho have been 
much in public life, or have in any way be- 
come pre-eminent. Tempted, of course, as 
we are, if, like us, he sinned, he needed 
repentance, and the blood that cleanseth 
from sin. Without holiness no man shall 
see the Lord. If he was mortal, he was 
a sinner ; and if he was not mortal, why 
is he there ? Whether he did or did not 
experience that new birth, without which 
no man can see the kingdom of God, we 
are not called upon to decide. There are 
things which make us hope. He knew what 



58 FUNERAL ADDRESS. 

lie must do to be saved. He was speaking 
with a Christian friend, in his recent sick- 
ness, about his feelings under the preaching 
of the Gospel. He said, " Any man who 
goes to perdition under that preaching, 
goes on his own responsibility." 

Ho spoke at that time of Mr. Webster's 
last hours, and he discussed the question of 
that great man's probable relation to his 
God and Saviour. He emphatically said, 
with deep emotion : " I believe he was right ; 
he comprehended the scheme"; — and he 
repeated the words, " he comprehended the 
scheme." Mr. Choate could say, as Mr. 
Webster once said on the causeway between 
Somerville and Medford : " My father and 
my mother are in heaven ; their faith is 
good enough for me ; I have never wavered 
as to my confidence in it." 



FUNERAL ADDRESS. 59 

Where there is a clear perception of the 
way to be saved through Christ, — where 
one " comprehended the scheme," the only 
question which remains is, Did the heart 
yield to it ? Did, at least, the certain and 
near approach of death, by the grace of God, 
(for even death is, of itself, without power 
to change the heart,) constrain the soul to 
accept the provisions of the Gospel ? The 
rule of the Gospel is, that a man who knows 
the truth shall confess Christ before men. 

In the absence of tlie highest kind of 
evidence, we are permitted to remember, 
that the last public effort of this friend of 
ours was made on a platform over the very 
spot where he, at this moment, sleeps in 
death, and that that effort was a testimony 
to the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, and 



60 . FUNERAL ADDRESS. 

an appeal to its ministers to make full proof 
of their ministry. One thing is certain, 
that for this he to-day has a reward ; for 
what an assembly is this ! met here on that 
spot where he lifted up his voice and gave 
that which proved to be his dying testimony 
to the religion of Jesus. God says: "Them 
that honor me I will honor." 

how easy it is for Christian love to 
hope that the mercy which removes our 
transgressions from us, may have made 
him one of its trophies, and that, through 
a j)eril and hazard the thought of which 
should be a warning to ns amidst the cares 
of this life and the temptations of our re- 
spective callings, his soul was led to comply 
with the conditions of peace which God has 
revealed ! " We must think more of that 



FUNERAL ADDRESS. 61 

Great Country," he said to his son the day 
before he died. 

On board the steamer he said to me, '' I 
am going to the Isle of Wight." I believe 
that he expected there to find his grave. 
He knew that it was only a question of 
time with regard to the issue of his disease. 
He had as great a dread of bodily suffering, 
and of its effect ujoon those who witnessed 
it, as I ever knew. 

It was, therefore, one of the many marks 
of extraordinary power in this man, that he 
was willing to die far from home, rather 
than know that those whom he loved were 
enduring the pangs which his protracted 
sufferings might occasion. 

He once said, speaking of sudden death : 
''I agree with De Quincey on that sub- 



62 FUNERAL ADDRESS. 

ject."* "The prayer," said Mr. Choate, 
" ' From sudden death, good Lord, deliver 
us,' must mean, f?'om death unprepared 
for, as the expression is also rendered. 
Otherwise I protest against it." His wish 
was not granted. 

But death prepared for by means of any 
sufferings, is followed by a far more ex- 
ceeding and eternal weight of glory. He 
may have been led about in the dark wil- 
derness of sickness and pain, to humble 
him and to prove him, and that he might 
know what was in his heart, and whether 
he would love the Lord his God, or no. 

The words of parting are nearly all said, 

* Miscellaneous Essays, Ticknor and Fields's edition, 
p. 168. 



FUNERAL ADDRESS. 63 

but we shrink from this separation. *'Then 
said Thomas, which is called Didymus, 
imto his fellow-disciples, Let us also go, 
that we may die with him." We would 
keep him here ; we would be in his com- 
pany. Seldom did love mingle in greater 
proportions with the honor paid to the il- 
lustrious dead, than is everywhere the case 
in the tributes which he receives. 

How true it is that we are spontaneously 
treated as we have treated others, and that 
in this respect, "with what measure ye 
mete, it shall be measured to you again." 
He fills the thoughts of those who knew 
him, much like a deceased and loved rel- 
ative ; you would almost believe that he is 
bone of your bone and flesh of your flesh. 

The future is, to my mind, filled with 



64 FUNERAL ADDRESS. 

liim. I think of heaven : is he there ? I 
think of the spirits of just men made per- 
fect : is he among them ? The Son of Man 
will come in the clouds of heaven : I think, 
his eyes will see Him. There shall be a 
resurrection of the dead ; his form will 
partake of it. There is a day of judgment 
at the end of the world ; he will stand and 
be judged. Eternity ! it will be for him ! 

Great Work of God ! Great Ornament 
of human kind ! Great Friend ! If such 
be the will of God, one great joy in heaven 
will be to meet you there, to mark your 
radiant beauty and glory, to hear your 
new song to redeeming love, to learn for- 
ever your wondrous history among the ran- 
somed, and with the angels that excel in 
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